The Empty Soul...

Thanks to commenter JohnB, for this link. I'm listening to it now. One of the most powerful songs ever created. True magic. A force that reaches between worlds, planes, and conjures.And if any of you has a link that I can open up in Windows Media Player, I'd be grateful.

My soul was empty for awhile. The container I kept in appeared so, anyway. I have found scraps of it, here and there, and taped them together, and filled in the missing segments from other media. I am a patchwork man, a simulacrum, held together with spit and sweat and yellowing tape.

God help you if I come unraveled...

I have met men, women, with no souls. Empty husks, dry bones, hollow creatures with a dim, red light way back in there, an unholy pilot light that keeps them somehow functioning, and animate...

And not for the best.

You uninitiated can see it when you look upon the black face of a child warrior in Africa. Ordered to kill his family to prove loyalty, to stay alive, he did. Shanked up the ass every night by the bigger boys. Not only no hope, but no hope of hope.

The walking dead.

I knew a guy once, I can't call him my friend, but we drank together sometimes. But I kept an eye on him. He was 'chunky', wore a French beret, and carried an art bag over his shoulder, and he used to lay in wait in Viet Cong hooches for them to come back, and fall asleep, and then he would crawl around the camp, and cut off their heads, one by one, and then their cocks, and then stuff their cocks in their dead mouths, and he left a couple alive to enjoy the spectacle when they woke up.

I guess you could say he 'took to it'. He knew he was insane, of course, well, a rare thing, such insight, but he had it, so instead of plying his trade on American civilians, he low-crawled at night, through residential neighborhoods, when the urges got too strong, and he sought out the biggest meanest guard dogs he could find, and he stalked them, and he cut their throats.

And there are thousands of him out there.

One day, he invited me to go up into the mountains with him, and kill some Mexican pot growers, who guarded their plot with AK-47's and explosive booby traps. I confess to being some tempted, and he smelled it, and that dark ruby light burned bright in his eyes, and I contemplated damnation, and what it looked like. The face it wore.I begged off, and the flames went cold, and he turned away, just another middle aged man in the crowd...

Another friend of mine, a young active duty (service and rank redacted) went with him, and, well, I'm guessing some Mexicans had a bad day. Or night.